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Here is a brief synopsis of the second movie. It would help if you have read the manga, as I make a lot of references to it.

Spoiler for "The Last Name" synopsis:

The movie begins with where the first one left off, with Misa obtaining the second DN and meeting the second shinigami, Rem.

We are then shown the funeral of Light's girlfriend, whose death was staged by Light to make people sympathize with him.

Light is then brought to L's underground investigative HQ, where when playing a game of chess, L reveals he still suspects Light, despite all that's happened.

The movie then closely follows the manga in introducing the "second Kira". Misa sends a tape announcing that she wishes to meet Kira, and gives a demonstration of her powers by killing people live on TV. The difference this time is that all this happened while there was a anniversary party in front of the TV station, where Sayu, Light's sister was there as well.

After the commotion with Light's dad coming to the rescue and forcing the transmission to be terminated, Light came to pick up a devastated Sayu. Unbeknownst to him, Misa, who's a celebrity herself in the TV station, happens to see Light, and notices that she could not see Light's lifespan, she now knows he's the owner of the DN - Kira.

As in the manga, Misa pays Light a visit, gives Light her DN. She then visits Light at college, and bumps into L, where she figures out his name, but L had her captured at once. Rem erases Misa's memories of the DN and urges Light to rescue Misa.

In the manga, Rem, under Light's instruction, gives the DN to Higuchi, a greedy corporate executive. In the movie, Higuchi's role is taken over by Takada Kiyomi, a junior reporter who's resentful that she isn't the anchorwoman. (In the manga, Kiyomi was Light's classmate in college. )

Upon receiving the DN, she decides to do more coverage on Kira in a positive way, this allows her career to elevate. She also kills off the current anchorwoman who only got to her position by sleeping with the producer along the way to becoming the new anchorwoman. Yet by making this petty revenge and the increase in media coverages concerning Kira, both L and Light (who has temporarily lost his memory as he relinquishes control of the DN for now) are able to track her down very quickly.

Upon recovering the DN and its memories and killing off Kiyomi, Light asks Misa to recover the other DN which he has buried in a nearby forest, and asks her to begin killing criminals again.

This is where the ending deviates from the manga.

L suspects Misa right away, and has Watari bring Misa over. At the same time, he says he wanted to test the (fake) 13 day rule, and arranges for Light's dad to bring the DN they have with them to test it on death row prisoners.

After sending everyone else away, it's just L and Light left in the HQ. L says he knows Misa would bring her DN along as she has forgotten L's name and wouldn't want to miss this chance to write down his name this time.

Rem realizes Light is forcing her to save Misa. She disappears behind the wall and reluctantly begins to write down some names. Rem slowly disintegrates to dust, but before doing so, she destroys her own DN in a burst of blue flames as she did not want Light to obtain her DN. (Unlike in the manga, where Light retrieved her DN from her ashes. )

L collapses and goes into a spasm, he realizes Light is really Kira, but says it's too late and closes his eyes. Misa exits the elevator - while witnessing Watari dying of a heart attack - and meets Light, who declares that they have won.

Or have they?

Spoiler for Ultimate ending:

Misa gives Light her DN, and the first thing Light does is write down his father's name - to the shock of Misa. Light has his father hand over the DN to him before dying of a heart attack. He says sacrifices needs to be made if a new world is to be born.

Light's father returns on cue and carries the briefcase containing the DN. Light says how sorry he is and that he has always respected his dad, but says what he did is necessary for the world. Light's father remained silent, and opens the briefcase - to show there's nothing inside.

The rest of the investigative team appears and has Light at gunpoint while Misa is handcuffed. Light is baffled, only to be confronted by none other than......L, who is STILL well and alive.

After the first day when Misa has recovered her DN, L confirms the deaths of the criminals and has locked down Misa as his prime suspect. He secretly has Misa's DN exchanged for a fake one. L has the real DN with him.

How can he still be alive? There's a rule in the DN that says once a person's cause of death is written, it cannot be changed. So L decides to put his own life on the line and wrote his own name down (though the audience still could not see his real name), where he will "die peacefully 23 days from now". As he has already written his own death, what Rem wrote on her DN would not be applicable on L, and thus L is guaranteed to live for another 20 days. Though L is saddened that he could not protect Watari.

He convinces Light's dad to take part in this set-up, Light's dad was shocked at L's determination to go so far, and in the end agreed. Light's dad is saddened to see his son fall to such depths, and he has no choice but to have him arrested. Light tries to write some names on the DN paper inside his hidden watch compartment (I'd like to get my hands on such a watch), but is shot by Matsuda the marksman.

As a last resort, he urges Ryuk to kill everyone in return for showing Ryuk even more interesting stuff, but Ryuk isn't buying that, and writes Light's name down. Light writhes in pain as he dies in the arms of his father, who came rushing to him, while Misa was devastated, falling on the ground sobbing.

L says he would burn the remaining DN, much to the disappointment of Ryuk, who then goes home.

20 days later:

Interpol says they did not believe anything about the DN, and has decided that this matter has come to a close and they will leave it as that.

L sits alone in the HQ eating candy, Light's dad comes in and commends L for his sacrifice. He then salutes L and leaves. L then "dies peacefully", at his side is a photo of the late Watari.

One year later:

Yagami's mom and sister Sayu both lament at the death of Light one year ago. As it's snowing outside, Sayu, carrying an umbrella, goes to the station to pick her dad up. She says it's been a year since Kira "disappeared", and that the world has gone back to the way it's been. But she's not disappointed, as she believed that it was Kira that killed her brother, and that his death was not in vain as he had managed to bring Kira down before dying. Light's dad hopes that she would never know the truth.

The final scene shows Misa, who lost all her memories concerning the DN and thus could not be prosecuted, mourning for Light's death a year ago. She senses that she's missing something important, but could not remember what it was. The camera then pans outside the window on Tokyo Tower, where Ryuk is seen flying towards the audience, laughing away.

Spoiler for thoughts about ending:

While they incorporated parts of the second arc ending, it just felt more satisfying for L to defeat Light then seeing a brat beat Light. And at least Light died in his father's arms, instead of dying alone like a pathetic wretch, and there was some sort of closure among his close ones surrounding his death.

Let me first begin by expressing just how large of a Death Note fan I am. I was introduced to the manga via a friend of mine, who said it had a very psychological approach to the detective genre, and that I would likely enjoy if I gave it a shot. It took me a month before I was bored enough to take her advice and give it a read through. I believe in that span of about two weeks, I devoured the entirety of the series, making it up to chapter 107 the week before the final chapter was put online (108). Death Note, practically overnight, became my favorite manga, and one of the best pieces of thriller writing in comic form that I'd ever come across.

Low and behold, Kaneko is announced to be directing a live action adaptation of the hit series. I won't lie and say I wasn't a tiny bit reluctant after hearing this. I loved many of his scifi and fantasy entries into film, but Azumi 2 left a terrible taste in my mouth. I hoped it was simply a one time thing, and he wouldn't make the same mistake on another well loved license.

Most of the Death Note manga is cerebral. There's a lot of internal dialogue, which doesn't bode well for live action. No one wants to be bogged down watching a guy stand there, with dialogue overlaid his face as he 'thinks'. It's considered a cheap and somewhat corny plot device in film, and I can certainly understand that. There was also a lot of concern over the addition of Light's love interest, Shiori. In the manga he doesn't have a true girlfriend, but instead uses the girls around him for his various agenda's.

I'm happy to report that not only did Shusuke Kaneko hit the ball dead on, but he hit it out the park. As both a fan, and a film lover, I was pleased on every level. I won't give a plot summary, especially since it's complicated enough without my possibly confusing things further, but just trust that it's as twisting and windy as the material it's based on.

Tatsuya Fujiwara once again demonstrates his acting ability here, as the enigmatic, genius, and insane Light Yagami. A character that's very deep in motivations, Fujiwara adds an extra layer by giving him a more human side. He's just slightly less cold and calculating than the manga version, but it's enough to be noticeable, and makes him more relatable. He's still incredibly intelligent and quick on his feet, but here we see that he is human, and not quite a God as he believes himself to be. While Fujiwara doesn't quite resemble Light on a physical level, he manages to launch himself past that and embody the character in full. The small grins, the subtle body movements: it all adds up to create an interesting, if not frightening look into the mind of a man who wants to change the world.

Kenichi Matsuyama plays the awkward, yet brilliant detective L. This was a great concern of many people, especially since the character L has a lot of small, and not so small, quirks that make him who he is. Whether it be the odd way in which he holds his phone, or the strange positions he shifts into while thinking, L is hardly normal as far as film characters go. Matsuyama completely takes L into himself. On a personal level, I don't believe L could have been portrayed better than what we see in the movie. Every small action is there, his voice, his awkward movements and the humor inherent in his personality: nothing is lost in translation. Even on a physical level, the resemblance is near perfect. Matsuyama is L. The perfect example of this, is a scene in which L is talking to Chief Yagami about how Light has a one to three percent chance of being Kira, and as he does so he is stacking pastries onto a stick. He stops for a moment, looks at the chief, grabs another stick of pastries, and hands it to the chief simply saying "Here". The chief grabs it in a puzzled fashion, and passes it on to one of the other investigators. This scene embodies L's haphazard personality and approach to things, and I loved every moment of it.

Ryuk is the other main character of the film that raised a lot of questions. Kaneko opted to have Ryuk be a completely cg character, voiced by none other than Shido Nakamura (Fearless, Yamato, Izo). Kaneko went the correct route, because Ryuk is a fully living character (Or as alive as a Shinigami can be in the first place...). Nakamura plays Ryuk with just the right amount of sarcasm and wit that would be expected of the Death God. As far as the computer animation is concerned, Ryuk is a very lively character, and very impressive considering how often he's on screen. Based entirely on the fact that he's rarely ever off screen for too long, he is quite the showcase for the cg team.

Shiori is a new character added to the film, as Light's girlfriend. Yu Kashii plays Shiori with just enough innocence which makes the film that much more tragic by the end. By having her character juxtapose to Light, we see a very stark contrast, but it also allows Light to be a more real character in his interactions with her, especially at the climax of this first film. Though many were worried about what this would mean for the rest of the movie, the change is for the better, and it allows the film to flow better.

The rest of the actors all do a commendable job, and no performance stood out as anything below par. It'll be interesting to get to know the investigation team more in The Last Name, as well as Misa Misa, who we saw very little of. She does however get a very good setup and lead in to the next film, so I'm looking forward to how Kaneko handled her side of the story. Perhaps most of all, I'm eager to see the interactions between Light and L, something we got very little of in this first film. If the final shots are any indication, this could be quite the ride.

That the movie is able to innovate such an excellent ending... That really is how the manga should have ended.

If they had been able to keep L alive, and somehow altered events so that the whole Mikami/Takada events occurred with L also, that would have made the manga achieve perfection. Although I did like the characters of Near and Mello, they were too central to the story. Maybe Light killing off Near in the warehouse and then L coming back from the dead with a legitimate and clever/reasonable explanation that had a root in some small details we (readers) missed, would have been best. And as you say, there's way more closure than in the manga, although the feeling of ambiguity in chapter 108 had its own charm.

From your synopsis the only thing I think I would dislike is that Takada didn't have her history with Light and seems dumb in an even broader sense than she is in the manga, but I suppose it was necessary for her to emulate Higuchi in order to be caught as he would have.

I really, really, really would like to see these subbed.

Edit: Kinny, I was thinking it over, and there's something I don't understand, if you could clarify it.

Spoiler for Second movie:

How does L know to fake his own death if Rem is writing from behind the wall? And how does Light's dad know to hand the death note over to him as if controlled? Was everywhere bugged and surveyed and L/Light's dad had hidden earpieces?

1. How does L know to fake his own death if Rem is writing from behind the wall?
2. And how does Light's dad know to hand the death note over to him as if controlled?
3. Was everywhere bugged and surveyed and L/Light's dad had hidden earpieces?

Spoiler for answers:

1. A cause of death can only be written ONCE. Once the cause of death begins to take effect, it cannot be overwritten. Like say if I'm to write someone is to die of a car accident, I can't change my mind and have him die by a plane accident once it's past the 6.40 minute window for the condition to take effect. As L has already written his own suicide down A FEW DAYS BEFORE Rem, so what Rem has written would be invalid.

2 and 3. The DN that Misa brought with her is a fake. L has it secretly exchanged, he has the real DN. So Light's dad was not affected at all. He watched and heard everything while away, as L had arranged for everything to be bugged.

That's strange. The second movie doesn't really follow the manga after all. L did die in the end, in the manga series, right?

Spoiler:

Not at the end, L was killed halfway through

The live action movies really owns to L all the way. The audience proves it. Everytime the L guy does something kinky (like wearing a weird mask, eating odd sweets, and doing a thumbs-up) every girl in the theater screams "kawaii!!".

Anyone feels that the Death Note (the first) movie's background music is not relly that nice? And when a scene needs some dramatic music, there's none. Example is when Light reveals his secret plan in the end, I was expecting some dramatic music, but...nope